Studies in the Medicine of Ancient India, Part I: Osteology, or the Bones of the Human Body c7.s2.t4.16

c7.s2.t4.16

7. The system of Vāgbhaṭa I is peculiar. Its aim is to combine the systems of Charaka and Suśruta (§ 38). Following the doctrine of the latter, Vāgbhaṭa I counts thirty back-bones, excluding the sacral and anal bones from the vertebral column, and relegating them to the pelvis. But if he had reckoned these two as separate bones, he would not have been able to secure the required total of 360 bones for the whole skeleton. Accordingly, with regard to this count, he adopted the system of Charaka, and counted the sacrum and coccyx as constituting a single bone. In the system of Vāgbhaṭa I, therefore, the term trika, or triangular bone, which he took over from Suśruta, includes both the sacral and anal bones (§ 60, cl. 4).